Therefore Repent! in better comic shops and book stores now! [if not, bug them about it!] :)

Free 60pg preview here on comicspace - & Reviews of the book so far here...

Pop goes the world..



Maxim Douglas is Salgood Sam, I am a Montreal based full time doodler and itinerate artist.

I’ve always drawn, both my parents did so…

I had a rather... interesting experience - childhood in general but while in school specifically here - and was retired early on. Up untill then I spent a lot of time - much of the summers of the mid to late 80’s - hanging out at my mothers work. The studios of Nelvana animation. Bugging the other artists, being a nerd Goofin’ on the vid test bed doing very short doodly animations, and making zines on the copiers. My first was a trashy tabloid called the Globo Hobo with Mr T in drag for the cover story, and my first sexy girl drawings were copies of character sheets for Angel, of Rock & Rule [Uncle Milky rules!].

So when i left school, I was already making my own comic zines and selling on consignment at local comic shops, and in '88 at 18 I left home and set out to start a carrier, being an artist but mostly really working in restaurant kitchens. Hence my affinity for pirates.

But the art thing started to go pretty well, and soon I was doing illustration gigs for local businesses. I had been developing an idea with local comic shop owner Al Roy, and in early 1991 my first B&W comic, Nature of the Beast was published by Calibre Press.

Sick of kitchen work I perused work in the mainstream comics biz. I did a few test pages for DC, and in 92 I drew two issues of Night Breed for Marvel, and in 93, quite unexpectedly I suddenly found myself assigned to draw a monthly comic book, the ill-fated Saint Sinner for the new Razor Line.

After the better part of the year doing that I had to move on. Shaken but not too stirred I continued to work as a freelancer for Marvel off and on for a while in 94.

That year I drew A short in Morbius the Living Vampire #25, titled “the Drainage System”. A cool issue of Ghost Rider 2099, titled 'Horrorshow' written by a young Warren Ellis. An issue of Ravage 2099, a short in Midnight Sons Unlimited #6, with Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange and Clea. 'Song of he Blood Opal', #63 of Doctor Strange, and Ghost Rider 2099 'Daddy Dearest', which I co wrote with a friend. In 2099 Unlimited #8 there was 'Behind the EightBall', a 10 page Spiderman story. And I also got back in touch with DC and did a Bloodwynd short in #5 of Showcase 94 titled 'Hero of Choice'.

The Ghost Rider 2099 issues were file issues and when the book was cancelled it left them unpublished. The Ravage story had the same fate of being cancelled a few issues before its slated print date. That all was disappointing, and at the time i felt the rest were all coloured horribly, and I was less than wowed by the stories I was being asked to draw on the whole. The last straw was being asked to do another Morbius the Living Vampire, and after agreeing sent the hands-down, most awful and undrawable script ever. I awkwardly declined and decided to take a step back and re-evaluate things.

After a year of that I started working again, mostly day jobs designing at Nelvana animation studios ( the family business as it were ) and assorted illustration gigs. Spare time went into playing with my own ideas, doing short stories and learning how to write for myself for a change.

Also in around 1995 I was approached to create graphics for a new INSP, key.net, which became hub.org in 96. They didn’t ask for much more than a few graphics in the first year - the web was slower place then and led the tech guys to make it a mostly text driven system. Nevertheless this led to my early initial involvement in the internet. I got free dial up, email and space online for a small web site. I put up my first web page in 97, but it took a while to work out what to do.

I started freelancing drawing comics again in 98. 'The Wire that Tamed the West' in The Big Book of the Weird Wild West : Paradox press/DC comics.

In 99 there was 'Reefer Madness' & 'The New Buffalo' in The Big Book of Vice : Paradox press/DC comics – 1999. 'Monsters of ROCK' in The Big Book of the Seventies : Paradox press/DC comics - 2000. And 'Realworlds: Wonder Woman vs. the Red Menace' - DC comics – 2000, an 48 page graphic novella Scripted by Glen Hanson & Allan Neuwirth.

I spent 2000 doing some more animation design work, and drew some more short stories in my spare time. I started trying to get more illustration work around this time as well, with mixed results – I get a few gigs here and there ok, but I really need a rep for this, I just don’t have the skilz/desire to kiss up enough, makes me feel all dirty. Still looking for one, if anyone is asking…?

Around this time I also started to host The Monthly Montreal Comix Jams, which I did for about 4.5 years I think. That was a lot of fun, until it wasn’t anymore. They still go on fine without me on mind you, so thats cool.

In 2001 with all the talk about the new Marvel I thought I’d give them another try, so there was 'The Changeling' for Muties #1of6 and 'The Patriot Game', Muties #6of6. But the pig sex incident really kind of truncated my interest in working with them much. Just too silly.

I also had a short story drawn in 99, Where the Wild things are, published in Danny Hellman’s first Legal Action comics.

In 2002 I inked pencils by Goran Parlov, in books 1 & 2 of Terminator 3: Before the Rise at Beckett Comics. A fun gig to work on with a great crew, but then I was not so happy about it after HE went into politics.

In 2003 I had another short, Helpless, published in Danny Hellman’s 2nd Legal Action comics. But for most of 2003 and part of 2004 I used the $ made doing illustration work to develop my own stuff, but things went slowly till I was able again to do comics full time. I was asked to illustrate and adapt to comics form a short story, The rise and fall of it all. Written and composed by John O'Brian. This project proved very inspiring and I was able to quickly put together the first act of 5 and along with some of my other personal stuff, in a small press run of my personal anthology, RevolveR. I got a lot of good feed back [1-2-3]and a few award nominations for it [1 - 2], and continue to keep the ball on that project rolling, though admittedly very slowly. RevolveR 2 has just been printed and was launched at Expozine 2007 here in Montreal.

In 2005 I hooked up with Rick Remender & Kieron Dwyer to do the bloody swashbuckling Sea of Red at Image, people said some nice stuff about that too, always cool. I have long term plans to return to the title, or the genre with a script idea of my own. Might take a while but eventually for sure.

In 2006 I wrote a lot, and applied for a grant from The Canadian Council for the Arts, receiving it in early 2007. Late in 2006 I signed on to draw a childhood favourite, [Revolution on the] Planet of the Apes, and had a blast working with some old buddies on that book. Mr Comics has plans to publish the collected series in 2007, I heartedly encourage you to check it out. [Note: Revolution has been voted the 7th best of 10 comics for 2006 by SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE]

I’ve been spending this year and will the next, writing one and drawing two graphic novels. Therefore Repent and Dream Life.

A few weeks ago i completed what I think will be most of the preliminary writing for Dream Life, currently looking for scraps of time to start laying it out in.

Work on Therefore Repent progresses at full steam on the home stretch, as I try to get that wrapped up in the next two months. I’m sure Jim, my collaborator on this book {the author and instigator} is wondering were the last 3 chapters are….

Currently we are waiting on word from an American publisher to see if they will pick it up for the US and Direct market, but a Canadian book market edition will be launched one way or anther by Jim's own Indy pub house, NMK. Look for us, and the Novel at the 2007 TCAF in august.

I’ve started to post a rather large chunk of this Novel online here as a weekly feature. As well I’ve been posting unlettered art at flickr
here in this set of images.

There is also Newspaper style strip comic, with the characters from Therefore Repent appearing in COMICS FESTIVAL 2007, a free comic day offering from the organizers of TCAF – covers – line up. Look for it in the finest comic stores on Saturday, May 5th.

Featuring a 38 pg excerpt of Therefore Repent and some assorted art and one page toons, RevolveR 2 was nominated for the 2007 Expozine alternative press awards for best English Comic this year. This will probably be the last small press zine type incarnation of RevolveR, as I’m currently talking with a mid size publisher about picking it up. If that goes well I’ll probably just re-launch it at one again – hopefully in the winter of ‘07/’08.



My website url is salgoodsam.com

Extra curricular - Myspace - CH ZERO - sequential - Flickr